Ye Olde Hipster

Dominic Brown emails with this link from the Thomas Jefferson/Monticello site. Emphasis added.

Jefferson’s clothes, according to his granddaughter, were “simple and adapted to his ideas of neatness and comfort … and sometimes blending the fashions of several periods.” In his pockets, Jefferson carried such a variety of portable instruments for making observations and measurements that he’s been dubbed a “traveling calculator.” Among his collection of pocket-sized devices were scales, drawing instruments, a thermometer, a surveying compass, a level, and even a globe. To record all these measurements, Jefferson carried a small ivory notebook (pictured) on which he could write in pencil.

Man, if that’s not the great-great-grandfather of the Hipster PDA, I don’t know what is. Hilarious.

Note, also, that TJ was doing what a lot of hPDA fans do now; you’re looking solely for easy and ubiquitous capture with the notebook, but the heavy lifting of permanent storage is handled elsewhere—in Jefferson’s case by a big book, and in my case, by text files and Entourage. Each tool for its job, right?

Related: if a binder clip is too modern for your tastes, you can always buy this old-timey (and surprisingly compact) brass and ivory pocket notebook, which is quite similar to Jefferson’s. “It’s the 18th century version of the PDA,” say its manufacturers.

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